My MVP vote was basically a choice between Morse and Espinosa for #1/2 and between Ramos and Zimmerman for #3. Morse edged out Espinosa, who semi-surprisingly held the team's WAR lead (3.5 to Morse's 3.3, Ramos' 3.1 and Zimmerman's 2.5). Still, I think Morse's .387 wOBA with "meh" defense trumps Espi's .325 wOBA with awesome defense. This year it does, at least.

Ramos and Zim were essentially a toss-up, but I picked Ramos for his slight edge in durability with similar other factors. While the difference between Ramos and Zim's games played were not that great (113 for Ramos to 101 for Zimmerman), I felt that a catcher playing in 7/10 of the team's games is pretty normal whereas a third baseman missing 60 games is not.

Walter Johnson Starting Pitcher of the Year
(Excellent performance as a starting pitcher):

Zimmermann was obviously the #1 choice here, so I won't bother even discussing that. The choice between Lannan, Livo and Marquis for #'s 2 and 3. At the end of the day, I feel that Lannan pitched the most and the best out of the 3, with Livo pitching the second most and Marquis the second best. Since Livo put up 9 more starts than Marquis, I decided to go with him, but it was closer than most would think. While Stras, Detwiler and Wang were all pretty solid, I couldn't consider a pitcher with less than 100 IP one of the top 3 starters.

Frederick "Firpo" Marberry Relief Pitcher of the Year
(Excellent performance as a relief pitcher):

The first two were easy; Clippard put up sick numbers and Storen put up slightly less awesome but still awesome ones. The third one was tough, but I felt that it was a choice between Coffey and MPH-Rod. Their ERA's and FIP's were similar (3.56/3.24 for Rodriguez and 3.62/3.41 for Coffey), but the difference came in the fact that Coffey thrived most in high- and medium-leverage situations while Rodriguez's best numbers were in low-leverage spots.

Sam Rice Hitter of the Year
(Excellence in all-around hitting, situational hitting and baserunning):

Morse, once again, was head and shoulders above the rest of the team, so that was an easy choice. Zimmerman was a pretty clear-cut second choice to me given his "Mr. Walk-Off" performances. Not sure why I went with Nix here, to be honest. His OBP dropped below .300 by the end of the season and his baserunning was nothing to write home about. Now that I think of it, I should have gone with Espinosa here.

Morse was 1st for obvious reasons (31 HR, .247 ISO). Nix finished solidly in second for me, with a .201 ISO and 16 HR despite only having 351 PA. Espi and Ramos were neck-and-neck in ISO, but Espi ended up passing the magic number of 20 HR, so I went with him as #3. And as much as I love Zimmerman, I don't see 12 HR and a .154 ISO as competitive with Morse, Nix, Espinosa or Ramos (or probably even Werth, who had 20 HR and a .157 ISO).

I toyed with putting Ankiel 2nd and felt that Ramos had at least an argument for top 3 consideration, but Espinosa and Zimmerman are both elite defenders with game-changing skills. Ankiel's arm is elite, but his range in CF is not amazing and I feel that 2B and 3B are much more valuable defensive positions than the corner OF's.

Mickey Vernon Comeback Player of the Year
(Player who overcame biggest obstacle in the preceding season to contribute on the field):

My reasoning here was a bit jarbled; Zimmermann got my #1 vote for recovering from injury to play a full, awesome season. Wang got #2 because he recovered from years of injury to contribute at all. Lannan got #3 because he struggled enough last year to get sent to AA and rebounded for a full, successful year. Marquis would have likely taken spot #3 had he finished the year with the Nats and Detwiler got more consideration as the season's final month carried on.

Josh Gibson Humanitarian Player of the Year
(Player who meritoriously gave of himself to the community):

I did not vote here because I did not feel like I could contribute anything more than simply a wild guess as to who was most involved with the community. Zimmerman would have been my #1 due to ZiMS, but I had nothing to contribute after that, so I abstained.

Minor League Player of the Year
(Minor league player most destined for big league success):

I mis-read the description; obviously if future major league stardom was the definition, I would have gone with Harper first. Still, Milone had a great year, Harper had a nice one as well and I wanted to point out how good Antonelli's season was for Syracuse.

3 comments:

Morse edged out Espinosa, who semi-surprisingly held the team's WAR lead (3.5 to Morse's 3.3, Ramos' 3.1 and Zimmerman's 2.5).

You've forgotten about the other Zimmerman(n). Jordan was worth 3.4 WAR, second highest on the team to Espinosa, and almost a whole win more than the other Z. And he did that in only 161 IP, surely 3-5 more starts would have given him the 0.2 more WAR to make him the most valuable player on the team.

I did leave out Zimmermann in the description, which was a mistake. To me, only the most amazing seasons by starting pitchers are good enough to qualify for MVP status. While Zimmermann was awesome, I just can't bring myself to vote for a guy who only played in 16% of the team's games. If there was no other option above, say, 1.0 WAR, I would go with J-Zim, but the Nats had a handful of productive seasons by their offensive players, so I decided to go with them.

I think that he is an undervalued guy around Nats town. People like him, but they don't realize how good he has been, I think. He should have been the ASG rep, too. I hope that they give him the Opening Day nod next year as a reward. Stras will have it indefinitely thereafter (rightfully so), but it would be a nice touch.